Recycling Blues

Teams of men and women work the nightshift to clean both the wide pavements abutting Madrid's broad boulevards as well as the cramped, single-file spaces reserved for pedestrians in the narrow single-lane streets of the old barrios. The "equipo limpio*" spray down streets with big hoses, scrub stained pavement with water resistant brushes. They sweep and gather all manner of refuse from the well-used streets, for if there is anything Madrileños put to good use, it is their streets, avenues, paseos, and alleyways.

Families take to the streets in the late afternoon for the familial stroll. The pace is slow to accommodate grandmother and/or grandfather, whilst young children run ahead and back, circling the familial unit like herding dogs. Later, throngs of teenagers will occupy benches - or lacking benches, they will stand or aggregate in unused porticos - where they will smoke and drink whilst laughing with their school friends. Later on, some of this group will vomit, maybe between a pair of parked cars or maybe right smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk.
Couples with no where else to go may walk into the shadows of a recessed carpark drive-way to smooch - or more. All of this activity makes a mess.

By the time most of the working world have showered and dressed and are locking the deadbolts to heavy front doors, Team Clean has done their work. The streets have been showered for the start of the day.

There are other regiments in Team Clean. Whilst their nightshift comrades tackle the streets, other units focus exclusively on the trimming of branches of overgrown trees or cutting grass of the neighbourhood green spaces. Some collect and dispose of garbage that is placed on the kerbside. Others are responsible for recycling. Recycling receptacles - mainly of two varieties: one for glass and the other for paper-based products - abound in Madrid. You shouldn't have to walk more than a block or two before you find an environmentally friendly option for disposing of your morning newspaper.

Once these almost skip-sized containers are filled, someone has to take the recycling to go get recycled. Lately, the paper recycling collectors have little resemblance to the formalised and uniformed members of Team Clean. It is, apparently, a sign of the economic crisis: budding impresarios have taken to the streets and are giving Team Clean a run for their recycling. When I first noticed the initiative of these freelance recyclers, I reckoned they were going about what they were doing for the purposes of warmth: their collection seemed to be limited to large pieces of cardboard often used by homeless for makeshift structures. This material was relatively easy to retrieve from the recycling containers - which are enclosed for the most part with only a slit spanning about three feet in width and five inches in height - because residents disposing of large cardboard boxes are often too lazy to properly break down the box and cram them fully down into the narrow opening.

Of late, the unsanctioned recycling collectors are going deeper and deeper into the recycling containers. You see them reaching in up to their armpits, groping around for some treasure.

I wondered what profit there could be in the collection of paper. The cynic in me suspected that the recycling thieves were, more diabolically, identity thieves. I have stopped recycling any mailings that might contain sensitive personal information.

This afternoon my observation of paper-recycling thievery took a turn to the doleful: a full grown man stood at the mouth of the recycling container. He seemed to be shoving something into the depths of the used-paper container. I spied a small pair of trainers sticking out of the recycling bin...

Wha? WTF? Can't be. 

... The subsequent expulsion of paper from within the recycling container confirmed my fear, either a child or a very slight woman had been inserted head first into the recycling bin. I looked and relooked, gawked and rubbernecked. No one else on the street appeared to notice. I wondered if I shouldn't inform some authority ...

the police? Team Clean? 

... but saw no one obvious to inform; and I was late for a flight.

What would you have done?  What should I have done?

*Team Clean

Guests Awaited

I wait for visitors whilst The Dog gnaws on a bone. One of those chunky, short bones with a dime-sized circular tube filled with marrow, but about to be hollow.

There had been music projecting from the invisible speakers in my laptop ...

 Where are they, those speakers?

 ...but I can't stand the music anymore. It becomes just a blared noise bouncing off of me rather than being absorbed as music ought to be.  I'm looking for songs to run to and the listening to this music is a vetting project - vetting the songs recommended by acquaintances on facebook.  It is interesting to listen to music that other people run to.  I wanted to comment back to my first boyfriend, after he wrote on my wall, "Any Grateful Dead" that I was looking for songs to run to not sit on the sofa and smoke weed to, but I thought that might be inappropriate for a FB wall.  Even if the music is fit for purpose (good to run to), it is not the kind of music to listen to at your desk whilst you wait for guests.  Running music, when you are not running, becomes almost abusive.

There are four guests, two couples, who are expected. They are coming from London. They are young and adventurous and used to traveling the likes of Ryanair. They like me and think I'm cool and are happy to flip coins to decide which couple will get the sofas and which will get the floor. I like to think (and honestly do think) that they are coming to Madrid to see me; not coming to Madrid with the luxury of a floor and a couple of sofas to sleep upon. They made their travel plans immediately upon hearing about The Man and me. I suspect they feel sorry for me.

I am worried that the couple who gets the floor will smell the fact that The Dog has recently enjoyed a marrow filled bone on their bed.

January Chirps

There's a new dog in town (town being the Internet). Ed is handsome (HOT!), cultured, shares the same type of appetite as The Dog, and has a url that makes me laugh.

The Dog has a crush and so do I. Check him out!

In other news, after I last posted, The Man and I met up. He looked at me, looked at my hair, and commented on its silky quality. I suppose that pricey product really does do what it says on the bottle!

Hair Raises

Blowdrying my hair in the gym, I am disappointed for the 2nd consecutive day with the probable results.

I have rented a locker at the gym so I don't have to ferry my toiletries back and forth from home. Locker is a word I have looked up in Spanish at least 3 times. After the second time, I was sure I remembered that it was 'cajon' (literally, 'big box' or 'drawer') so when I asked the lady at my gym's reception how much it would cost to rent a locker, I really asked her how much it would cost to rent a drawer downstairs (in the locker room, which I know from watching La Liga is 'vestuario').

The reception lady at the gym gracefully paused whilst she absorbed my question. Then the lightbulb went off "Ah, taquilla* ..." She could have looked at me stupidly and forced me to stutter and stammer myself to further meaningless drivel and red-faced embarrassment, but she was kindly.  She took the 5 to 10 seconds required to decipher the puzzle I presented her.

Thank you, nice gym-reception lady!

The shampoo and conditioner I keep in my newly rented gym locker do not seem to be living up to the job their label promises.  My hair is looking nothing like silk.  I bought this shampoo and conditioner (and a post-conditioner, smoothing creme) for more euros than I care to admit the last time I was traveling through Amsterdam and my flight was delayed, leaving me to wander the airport and buy things I really didn't need and for far too much money.

I ruminate over my current dilemma.

Why is my hair so blah?

I'm loathe to blame my unkempt tresses on my pricey products.

What else could it be?

I consider the other variables in my grooming procedures:  the hairbrush and the hairdryer.

The hairdryer is one of many of its kind that line the length of the mirrored wall in the ladies' vestuario. It is simple, sleek, black.  Not too heavy.  It has 3 different temperature settings.  Likewise, it has 3 different blow-force settings.  It's all I could ask for in a hairdryer.  Whilst it would be tempting to blame the gym's poor choice in bulk purchasing for my bad hair days, it would, in this case, probably be unfair.

I look at the brush I am using.  It is a simple instrument.  A light wood handle with a medium sized round head from which hard white plastic tines protrude.

Out of the question.

The brush, above all else, will remain blameless.  It makes me think of my mother.  I think I will call her later and tell her I thought of her whilst I blew my hair dry this morning.  I won't tell her that I was disgruntled with the result.  The brush I am using was my mother's before she lost all her hair to chemo or radiation or whatever horrible treatment it is that causes the hair to fall out.  She gave me this brush, her last brush, after her hair started to grow back.  She decided she liked to keep her hair short.  She has no use for brushes anymore.  She just runs her fingers through her hair, and she looks perfect.

There's an idea!

*The real word for 'locker'.

Chinese Eat Spanish

The twists and turns of actions and thoughts lead me to Roscón de Reyes. I suppose, if I were to follow the flow to its source, it could begin with my birth or before. An infinite onion that, in the un-peeling, reveals yet another step in the path that leads me to this ...

pastry or cake or bread??

... traditional Spanish cake-type substance to commemorate the 6th of January, the day of the 3 gift-bearing kings.

Rather than start at the very, very beginning which would be endless to find and even more endless in the telling, I will begin with a beginning that started a couple of months ago, when, due to a number of stressful circumstances, I started on the fags again.    At the time I re-started smoking, I thought it would be a temporary thing.  True to my mind, I marked the diary with a 'quit by' date and, as quickly as I had picked the fags up, I put them down.  Having quit smoking on a number of occasions, I was not surprised by the appearance of an unpleasant, sticky lump in the back of my throat - as if my body was cleansing itself of toxins which accumulate in one central point to be hacked out with a good hearty cough.  It is not so very different a feeling from the onset of the flu.

When I come down with the flu (or believe I might be susceptible to the flu), I believe in drinking lots of hot tea with lemon and honey.  With a flu-like, post-bout-of-smoking lump in the back of my throat, I decided I should make myself some flu-fighting honey-lemon tea, but I had no lemon.

Just at that moment - the moment I was thinking about tea with lemon and honey and remembering that I had no lemon at home - I was walking by my neighbourhood's chino convenience shop, so I popped in to see if the Chino had lemons only to interrupt the Chinese family - mother, father, son and daughter - eating extravagant pieces of their Roscón de Reyes.  The father quickly put his paper plate with his piece of festivity cake down and went to find my lemons (which, for future reference, I will remember he keeps behind the cans of beer in the cooler).  The son's piece of Roscón was spread all across his plate and his mouth and hands and shirt.  The daughter delicately ate her piece with a knife and fork.

As I paid for my lemons I mused upon this meeting of cultures and suddenly remembered James and the Facebook invite he sent me (ages ago!), which I accepted and as yet have not written a personal note to let James know what has been going on in my life these past 25 years.  I felt a twinge of guilt and told myself I really must write James a proper note.  When I do get around to writing him, I will tell him that he inspired me.

James, seemingly the usual white-like-white-bread American teenager,  had a thing for Chinese culture.  One summer he volunteered as a security guard at the Chinese wing of the local art museum.  The next year he worked as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant.  He went on to study something Chinese related at Queen's College, Cambridge.  Years ago, James had taught me two phrases in Mandarin:  'woe boo jure dao' and 'tzi jen'*.

Walking out of the Chino's shop, I waved good-bye whilst blurting out, as best I could remember, the second of the phrases that James had taught me (that I had never used except to show off after drinking too much).

The neatly-eating daughter looked up from her plate and echoed my hasta-luego-au-revoir going away salutation with her own creaky"tzi jen".  Her parents just looked at me like I was a twat.

Later that evening, The Man and I met up for drinks, too many - because, we ended up participating in the season festivities by buying ourselves a Roscón de Reyes.

The Roscón de Reyes can be plain or with white or chocolate cream.  We went for the chocolate cream. (The Chinese family had been sharing the white creamed version).  I remembered having a slice last year ...

or was it the year before last?

.... but I didn't fully recall the experience.  The Roscón looks good.  So good that you think you can't possibly not like it.  You stifle that niggle at the back of your head.  Next year I will remember:  I do not like Roscón.

What I do like about Roscón is that each and every ring of Spanish King's Day pastry contains a hidden surprise.  I do like surprises!  Especially when I win!

*My spelling for 'I don't know' and 'good-bye'.

Dog Ails

The last 24 hours have had me singularly preoccupied with a badly farting dog.  There were earlier signs that The Dog was not entirely herself.  The day before yesterday on her afternoon walk, she developed an unpleasant little spitball on the side of her mouth. The Dog is not a drool-inclined dog, so this caught my attention.  She also didn't have the same spunk (get-up-and-go for my British friends who might want to attribute a more saucy, less virtuous meaning to my choice of words).  I assumed her lethargy and unusually active saliva production would be short-lived.  Then she didn't eat her morning meal, which remained untouched at dinnertime.

Sometimes a dog does not eat because it is holding out for something more appetising to appear in its dish.  My philosophy is to leave the dog food in the dish until the dog eats it.

She'll eat it when she gets hungry enough.


Then she started with the noxious fumes, and immediately I knew things were not right.

I stroked her soft belly.  She whined.

Just as she is normally not a drooler, she is no whiner.

She looked at me with imploring brown eyes.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?"

Of course, she didn't answer.

I posted on Facebook, "The Dog is sick. :("  All my dog lover friends commiserated.

I cleaned dog vomit from the rug, rolled the rug up, and put it away as precaution against subsequent episodes.

I administered water teaspoon at a time.

I despaired when she eschewed the teaspoon of honey I thought would give her some energy.

I took her to the vet* over my lunch hour.

My visit to the vet was followed by a visit to the pharmacist.

My work day today has been interrupted continuously to dole out strokes of concern and affection.

This is as close to motherhood as I will come.

*It has taken me just shy of two years of out-loud practicing to be able to pronounce (just) 'clinica veterinaria'.

Apple Tunes

I hadn't expected to put the Apple TV to so much use.

It was a purchase The Man had made in the UK before making the move to Madrid. He had thought it would be a good way to access programming - especially English language programming - which is limited on the Iberian peninsula. We tried to put the damn thing to use a number of times, but grew frustrated:

(a) it was wirelessly connected to our respective laptops and seemed to take liberities in the synchronisation process, which resulted in the disappearance of pre-owned movies. As if she were a jealous lover casting out the memories of her predecessors.

(b) series to which we bought season passes stopped arriving after only six or seven episodes, leaving us to wonder if there was some kind of strike going on in Hollywood, or could technology actually be going wrong?

 Consequently, I wasn't too bothered by the fate of the Apple TV when The Man and I moved flats.

At some point during the past two months something - possibly desperation - happened, and I decided I would give the Apple device another go. Maybe it is the absence of The Man ....

 Is the Apple TV masculine or a lesbian? Did she want me all to herself? 

 ... or the fact that I limit the Apple's use to the barest: no attempts at synchronization in my place! Whatever it is, the Apple TV now works the way I would want it to work, and the results are astounding.

•  Due Date: a puerile film starring Robert Downey Jr and that bearded guy from The Hangover. The trailer promised low brow laughs to which I could never admit. Here I am proclaiming it on the Internet: the film did not live up to the promise of the trailer. 
• The Inbetweeners: an even more puerile film starring no one I had ever heard of. Based on a UK series (I think), this feature length film caused me to cringe and laugh in equal measure, a bit like the UK version of the office. I laughed heartily on a couple of occasions. I cringed often, mainly when the kid with the bowl cut talked. 
• Harry Potter - whatever the last one was. An obligatory yawn. Films never equal their paper and ink counterparts especially when they feature young actors of questionable talent. (I have a hard time watching the screen version of Ron W.; the other two have certainly matured, not only as people but also as actors.)
• Prime Suspect Season 1 - Helen Mirren, I love you, even as a single minded cop in whatever decade that is ... The 80s or 90s? 
• The Vampire Diaries Season 1 - Guilty pleasure that haunts me. 
• The Vampire Diaries Season 2 - Guilty pleasure that haunts me even more.
• The Vampire Diaries Season Pass to Season 3 - Guilty pleasure that haunts me but keeps me hanging ...  

When is the next episode available on iTunes? 

... Finally, and what originally turned my mind to this post: Almodóvar's latest, The Skin I Live In.

I originally saw it in the UK on one of my recent business trips. This weekend, The Man had still not seen it; we were surprised to see it on offer by Apple. We ordered it. Although not my favourite of Pedro's films, it is a riveting story, beautifully shot, and with music chosen masterfully to heighten the emotion of each scene.

I thought about writing about this film in a convoluted way. 

"What should I write about?" I thought.

"I'd like to write about outside of myself. I'd like to write about life the way I did in London. I'd like to convince Franklin that Spain is worth visiting." That's what I thought.

For as much as I want to share the story of my romance with Madrid, the words still don't come. It is still too early.  In my observations I focus on the annoying and inconvenient; on the noise and the mean looks of the old women.

"So," I thought, "you should write about Viridiana."

Viridiana is my favourite restaurant - not just in Madrid, but in the world. It is also a movie by one of Spain's most beloved of artists, Buñuel. The words to describe Viridiana (the restaurant) do not come, but the idea of writing about the restaurant makes me think of the movie, and the movie, which has a disturbing not-rape but hinting-at-rape scene, makes me think of Almodóvar's latest film, which also has a disturbing scene; a rape, I would call it. This makes me think of Spanish cinema and rape.

I wonder if it is a true theme or a coincidence of my experience.

I will write about beautiful food another time.

Berry Debate Rages

Some words have no translation. Like 'crush'.  As in to have a crush on someone.  A simultaneous interpreter assures me that there is just not a proper translation for the word 'crush' and the subtle, innocent nuances associated with it.

Other words suffer from controversy about their translation.  Let's take blueberry.  Years ago I learnt that the word for blueberry in Spanish is 'arándano'.  A couple of years later, an Ecuadorean woman insisted on correcting me:  'arándano' is not blueberry, but rather cranberry.  As an American who had been heavily exposed to British English, I was open to the vagaries imposed upon a language by its multitudinous speakers.  I let the Ecuadorean correct me, but held onto my belief that 'arándano' for blueberry was correct - at least in Spain.  I has specifically remembered learning the word when I got very excited to discover a blueberry muffin at Pans & Company in 1995.

Ever since, I sometimes play the 'what is blueberry' game with native Spanish speakers.  Inevitably, in Spain, they say 'arándano'. Then I ask them what 'cranberry' is and all hell breaks loose.  It's a very exciting game.

Madrid Recycles

Outside my building and on the kerbside there's a parking notification sign. No parking along this stretch of the kerb on Saturday mornings. This is a punto limpio móvil (mobile clean point) where Madrilños can bring certain (and only certain) items to be picked up for recycling. Things like cooking oil, clothes, and lightbulbs.

To dispose of other items, large items like mattresses or desktop computers, Madrileños have to visit a punto limpio fijo (fixed clean point).

Since September, a large square box containing an old desktop has sat in my hallway. This week I finally got around to disposing of it in an environmentally responsible way, which involved a visit to the closest fixed clean point.

The Man drove a rental car. I sat in the passenger's seat with an iPad turned on to Google maps and tried to minimise the stress associated with driving to an unknown location in tedious traffic by giving quick and correct directions. Unfortunately, Google maps wouldn't give us a route to our destination. We were heading toward a "paseo" address and Google automatically changed "paseo" to "calle" a significant change to the desired end destination.

I caught Google's ploy in time, and we eventually made our way to the punto limpio situated directly across from the University of Madrid's Veterinarian Faculty. The punto limpio fijo consisted of a small building manning a barricaded entrance. Through the barrier and to the left, 10 large rectangular holes cut into the ground contained separated large items. Mattresses in one. Refrigerators in another. Computer goods in another (except monitors which had their own, separate container). To the right, bins for paper, plastic, clothes, glass. All neat and tidy and lined up. All put in order. All almost Germanic in orderliness.

Kudos to Madrid and their puntos limpios!

Life Happens Hard

It is time to pull my head out of the sand and write about it.

Is it?

 I have a new desk, which I had spent a couple of days admiring from the other side of the window on the pavement outside a stylish furnishings shop. It is a wood-topped table with three wooden drawers held in place by a brushed and muted metal frame. I was afraid I would lose my chance if I didn’t act fast. The same shop had had a beautiful wooden chest in the same spot where the desk was displayed. I had thought about buying that wooden chest, but whilst I was thinking about it, someone more quick to act than me scooped it up, and it was gone. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to ‘my’ desk, so I walked in the shop, pointed to the desk, and said, “I want that desk.”

The shop lady told me I had to pay ½ immediately and the 2nd half later. I didn’t want there to be any ambiguity about my intentions so I plopped down the full amount there and then. The desk is mine.

With a new desk in my new flat it might be time to write about – or if not properly write about, at least state the reason for - putting my head in the sand.

The putting my head in the sand and operating through a fog is the reason for my infrequent blogging.

How can you write about the meals that you eat, the trees that line the boulevards, and all the small things when a tragically momentous occurrence (for you) throws you into a fog?

There is also the fact that I must respect the privacy of my beloved and so the writing about it must remain obtuse.

When I moved into my new flat, I moved here without My Man. He is living just a 10 minute walk down the same street. We continue to love each other fiercely and see each other almost daily, but that does not undo the fact that life has thrown us a challenge, and, for the moment at least, in response to this challenge, we are living separately.

The past three to six months have been topsy-turvy and tear-filled. I have questioned my most fundamental life choices. This is life happening. Sometimes it’s easier to do it from a fog and to write about it from a whim-fully purchased new desk.

Sleep Evades

I had hoped to sleep on the plane. The previous night I had woken at two in the morning; and, although I know I must have fallen back to sleep at some point because I dreamt ... about Sarah Dougall, a girl with whom I had gone to university and whom I hadn't really known but had always liked / admired / wished to be friends with.

She was so cool. She had been to Europe. Both of her parents were dead so she had some tragic maturity about her. She didn't care so much for me. She was always polite but kept her distance.

In my dream she had put on a lot (ALOT) of weight. Thinking we recognized something in the other, yet unsure in our instincts, we eyed each other from across the office lobby that occupied my dream. She was working for my client in Switzerland. As soon as we placed each other, talked, and had our curiosity sated, Sarah lost interest in further conversation. It was just like university.

Because it was a dream, I know I fell back asleep at some point; but It wasn't any kind of sleep that counts.

I groped for my phone every fifteen minutes to check the time.

A good night's sleep would have been very convenient. A full day of meetings and a late evening flight awaited me: in other words I was going to be full-on with no chance of a small respite until the flight 17 hours later.

Fuck. Why can't I sleep?

That's what I thought from 2 til 6 this morning. That's what I'm thinking right now on the delayed flight home.

Insurance Pays

I had my first dental experience in Spain. Dentist appointments (for routine cleaning) are, for me, like haircuts. I fail to make the required appointment in advance so when I need to have my teeth cleaned (or my hair cut) I am generally desperate for the cleaning (or the cutting) and find myself pleading with the gatekeeper on the other end of the phone for a slot in the diary.

Today! Today! (at the latest tomorrow.) Please!

I was surprised that there was no hemming and hawing about fitting me in for a professional teeth cleaning, especially given that my choices of dental cleaning facilities were limited by both my postal code and my insurance policy. Less than 24 hours would pass between the moment of my dental crisis ...I need a cleaning now!... and the cleaning itself, thanks to the luck of the appointment book (or the crisis?... Are people skimping on dental hygiene?).

I arrived for my cleaning armed with all the appropriate paperwork from the insurance company. The girl at the reception desk didn't seem quite prepared to handle the paperwork. She handed it back after a cursory glance and informed me that they didn't need to fill out this form; it was for me only. "But what is this section for then?" I asked innocently.

Patiently, she took the forms back and read through the section I had pointed out. "Oh. I suppose we do fill this out." she proceeded to fill in boxes under the "To be completed by the doctor" section of the form and finally stamped it with an official looking dentist's stamp. Very surprising given her first reaction, and, I thought, "She must be new."

The cleaning happened. The dental hygenist was too kind for my liking. She did not reprimand me at all. In fact she praised the state of my mouth, a sure sign for an incomplete procedure. After a no more than 15 minute cleaning procedure, she walked me, feeling dissatisfied, to the receptionist's desk.

The receptionist asked for my insurance card.

"But you took the details earlier ... " I thought to myself without saying anything.

She swiped the insurance card through the credit card reader.

"She has no idea what she is doing." I thought to myself without saying anything. "It's not a credit card!"

I stood at the receptionist's desk after she had handed my insurance card back to me. She, the receptionist, looked at me. I looked at her. I was clearly waiting to finalize the transaction. "That's it." She let me know the transaction was completed.

No money had exchanged hands; I had no receipt to accompany the form she had completed and stamped.

Now, I only have to trust that the process, for as mysterious as it is to me, works. In the meantime I will hold onto the completed form until such a time that I think it is safe to recycle.

3 Chirps

#1 - When I walked in through the automatically rotating glass door of my hotel I reached for my room key, which I had placed in my back pocket. "Pockets are convenient, aren't they?" I thought to myself. Who was the first to think of them? Some smart cave person.

#2 - WTF? No more than 10 minutes away, the sun was shining in Schiphol. A short train ride away, clouds have hunkered down. It looks unbearably cold. Someone behind me on the train is thinking what I am thinking, only in French, or so I think. I catch "soleil" ... so-lay ... precisely! Where did it go? That's what I want to know too!

#3 - A man at a table in front of me speaks loudly into his mobile phone. He is either of the uppermost echelon of English society or else he has been well educated in the manner of speech. I suspect the latter because a true blueblood would speak at a lower volume especially when proclaiming "These people are very important ... You must see to ..." I don't catch what the person at the other end of the phone must see to; I am too busy wondering about what kind of people are so much more important than other people. Probably arseholes.

Went Dutch

The restaurant purports to be Argentine, but not one of those tatty, neon-signed joints where some employee stands outside with the sole purpose of convincing you that you should eat in his Argentine restaurant.

I wonder if that's all the standing-outside employee has to do.What else would he have to do? Set the tables before the dinner rush or count the money at the end of the evening?

I remember I was surprised by the ancillary duties I had to perform as a waitress. I had thought being a waitress was all about waiting tables. I hadn't realized I would have to slice countless lemons to be served with the iced tea or water. There is a word used in the industry to call these non-waiting-on-tables waitering duties, but I forget the word.

The Argentine restaurant is called Cao, which in Spanish is pronounced "cow" so it's a nice little play on English and Spanish words considering that as an Argentine restaurant Cao specializes in serving up slabs of cow. Sitting just off Dam Square, it is likely to be full of tourists, but I have been here before and know the food is good, and there is likely to be a smattering of Dutch patrons as well.

I order my slab of cow and a side of broccoli lightly steamed and served with olive oil and thin slices of hot pepper. Two tables down two American girls work on their own slabs of cows. One of the two seems to do all the talking. I find her annoying. I am trying to read what promises to be a fabulous, yet demanding book, Infinite Jest. The loudmouth two tables away distracts me. I reread a sentence. And another and another. It dawns on me that Loudmouth is not doing all the talking, it is just that her friend is quieter. When I really analyze it, Loudmouth really isn't that loud. She just has one of those nasally whining voices that hits a frequency that cannot be tuned out. I involuntarily throw an occasional annoyed glance.

Another single eater is sat beside me between Loudmouth's table and mine. He speaks neither Dutch nor English. When the waitress takes his order he points to dishes that have just appeared on my table. He gets exactly what I have. We are sitting on a single, leather-upholstered bench that runs the length of the wall. The tables are pressed as close together as they can be whilst remaining separate. I wonder if it's a funny site: two lone diners sitting side by side eating the same meal.

I have no intention of doing anything but going back to my hotel. This is a business trip, not to be enjoyed. But the evening has other plans. It is cold, but not impossibly so. The evening is clear and the city is active with pedestrians and cyclists riding their upright Dutch bikes. White and gold Christmas lights blink here and there. I stop to listen to buskers playing familiar yet unrecognized music in front of the impressively delicate yet dominating governmental building occupying Dam Square. Later when I consult the Internet to confirm my belief that the Neoclassical structure is the Town Hall, I learn that it is actually the Royal Palace. It used to be the Town Hall way back when (1655-1808). I feel kind of right.

I walk up the Damrak toward the central station and pass the restaurant of a hotel where on the way to my dinner, I spied a young man eating alone. I wonder if he is still there. He's not. An older lady has taken his place. She too is alone.

I turn off the Damrak onto one of the narrow side streets used only by pedestrians or cyclists. These side streets always seem to be full of chip shops - I am reminded of a chip shop that gave me a smile: Chipsy Kings - and dodgy looking Asian cuisine restaurants and bric a brac crap shops. I watch out not to get lost. I normally have an uncanny sense of direction, which Amsterdam has the pleasure of stymying every time. I see Cool Cat and chuckle.

I used to call one of The Man's and my good friends a "cool cat". The Man used to get jealous; he wanted to be the cool cat.

Cool Cat serves as the landmark that gets me back on track and to my hotel where I upload my (these!) thoughts.